Christmas
is the celebration of the union of the Divine and Human Nature of Christ in
one Divine Person. There is no human personality in Christ, only the Divine.
All the words, thoughts and actions of Christ are those of God Incarnate. This
is the real meaning behind the celebration of Christmas.

Among
some scholars today, especially those keen in the ecumenical movement, it is
often said that the Church in expressing the mystery of the Incarnation has
bound herself to the terms of ancient Greek philosophy, and that as the old
philosophy has passed away, the phraseology of the ancient councils-or
synods-has become simply meaningless to the modern man.

This
is a complete misconception. The doctrine of the Incarnation rests on the
distinction between nature and person. In Christ there are two natures, the
divine and the human, but only one Person, that of God the Son, the Second
Person of the Blessed Trinity. The explanation of the mystery is beyond the
greatest intellect, but the meaning of the mystery is intelligible to the
simplest child.

Every
child spontaneously perceives the knowledge of the distinction between nature
and person. Imagine that we come across a child in the dark, hold it, and ask:
“What is that? Is that a big doll?” The answer will come: “No, it is a
little boy, it is a little girl.” Supposing we alter our question and ask,
not, “What is that?” but “Who is that?”, the child will spontaneously
answer with its own personal name: “I am Peter. I am Maria.” By its answer
the child has proved that it knew that in the first case it was asked for its
nature and in the second for its person.

Every
man is fully aware that, though his fellow men share something with him, they
are not he. They share with him his nature, but not his person. They are what
he is, but they are not who he is. A man’s personality is essentially
incommunicable to another person. Personality is something one and
indivisible. As a matter of fact in many languages it is expressed simply by
the number “One.” Someone, quelqu’un, einer, uno,
and so on. It is just the one unity, from which all unities in human knowledge
are derived.

The
first and radical meaning of person is that incommunicable something by which
I am I and you are you. That is not our nature, for we have that in common,
but another factor in reality, by which intelligent beings are individualised.

Even
the man in the street, John Jones, innocent of all philosophy, would say “I
am I, not because I am a man, for there are other men besides myself, but
because, being a man, I am John.” An ordinary man applies these primary
notions readily to the mystery of the Incarnation. He would say to himself:
“If I could meet Our Blessed Lord and ask Him the question: Who are you?”
Our Blessed Lord would answer: “I am God the Son made Man for you”; and I
would sink upon my knees and adore saying: “my Lord and my God!” If I
could ask Him again saying: “What, then, is this human form I see before me,
is it a vision, a phantom, a mere veil thrown over the glory of Your
Divinity?” He would answer: “No, for even that is also I Myself, for being
eternally God, I have become man, and this nature is My own. I am a man like
you with flesh and blood, with body and soul, though I have not ceased to be
the Son, who is with the Father and the Holy Spirit, I who am God, unto the
ages of the ages.” Then would the simple man, in loving adoration, gaze upon
the human face of the Only-begotten of the Father and again say: “O my Lord
and my God!”

Such
is the act of faith easily elicited by the minds of the learned and the
simple, natural to children as well as to the aged, independent of the
knowledge of any system of philosophy.

Yet
a mystery the Incarnation will always remain. How one single person can
possess two natures, leaving those natures complete and unchanged and yet
holding them both in the unity of his single personality, how the infinite
God, remaining immutable, infinite, eternal can in time assume a created human
nature, with mind and body, heart and soul as His very own, so that Jesus
Christ is true man and true God, how all this is possible no one on earth
during his mortal life can explain.

On
earth we only comprehend the union of one person with one nature, for nature
and person together constitute the only individuals we know. That one
individual should possess two natures has no parallel on earth and is beyond
our experience. It is utterly unique. That a finite and created individual
could possess two natures may well be doubted, but we are dealing with an
infinite, eternal, uncreated person, and that He could assume another nature
unto Himself, who can gainsay? But how it can be done and the manner of the
union is beyond our understanding.

His
human nature was human, completely, fully and only human. His divine nature
was God. Neither His human nor His divine nature is a compound of humanity and
divinity. Neither nature has “another side” to it. There are two natures,
which are, as natures, totally distinct, but there is one single person which
actuates, or holds, or possesses both natures, and gives them being.